The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to exercise, rehabilitation and/or entertainment devices and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to an active, exercise, rehabilitation and/or entertainment device.
Intensive rehabilitation therapy has been shown to be beneficial for patients recovering from stroke or brain injury who have limited strength or movement in the upper extremities. In the acute phase, physiotherapists commonly move the patient's affected limbs, slowly leading towards the patient moving the limb by himself/herself, possibly with some prompting or assistance by the physiotherapist.
Lately, robotic platforms have been introduced to help in the rehabilitation process. These specialized robots perform many of the actions traditionally made by physiotherapists, but incorporate visual feedback meant to provide a challenge and engage the patient cognitively. These robots perform the four basic interventions that are part of virtually all therapy plans: passive, active assistive, active range of motion, and progressive resistance.
Physical therapy must continue once the patient returns home from a rehabilitation center. For this chronic phase, physical therapy that incorporates the Nintendo® Wii® gaming system (more commonly known as “Wii-hab”) has shown improved results over traditional rehabilitation therapy, mostly because it takes away the boredom of regular cyclic exercises. Patients see Wii-hab like a game, but it has been shown to be an effective therapy to improve balance and range of motion.
However, one major drawback of physical therapy methods based on the Wii® and similar consoles (e.g. Microsoft's Xbox 360® Kinect® motion control system) is that they cannot cause or oppose movement by the body. As such, the exercise conducted by patients is limited to exerting forces against the weight of the patient's limbs plus the light-weight controller.
Moreover, these therapy methods typically utilize virtual environments, providing patients with visual feedback as they perform repetitive arm movements to improve motor functionality, but patients often struggle to process such information because of the lack of haptic feedback. Robotic systems, which are able to provide such feedback forces, are bulky, expensive, and not well suited for the home environment. A skilled therapist is thus required when using Wii-hab and similar rehabilitation systems to provide hand-over-hand guidance (“shaping”) to assist the affected arm in performing functional tasks.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,730,049 to Kalvert, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a tunable and adjustable device for stabilizing tremors including a rigid splint for receiving a patient's hand, wrist and forearm, and at least one gyroscope removably and rigidly attachable to said splint and positionable for counter effecting the tremors. Also, a method for tuning and adjusting the device is provided which includes assessing the dynamic characteristics of the patient's tremors, assessing at least one activity the patient intends to perform with his/her hand, wrist, and arm which is subject to tremors, attaching the splint to the patient's hand, wrist, and arm that he/she intends to use for the at least one activity, and attaching and positioning the at least one gyroscope to the splint at least one location which counter effects the patient's tremors.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,794 to Kaiser, et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a light weight, wearable, and balanced active tremor control system including a mount; a proof mass frame moveable with respect to the mount; at least one actuator on the proof mass frame for imparting a force on the mount; a motion sensor for detecting movement of the mount due to tremors; and a controller for driving the actuator in response to the motion sensor.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,458,089 to Ziv-Av, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a method and device for reducing trembling of a limb of a human subject. The method comprises suspending a mass from the limb via a suspension configuration. The suspension configuration having an effective spring constant and/or a non-zero coefficient of damping in at least one direction such that the mass is driven to oscillate in the at least one direction out of phase relative to the trembling motion. A further embodiment includes a motion sensor to sense the motion of the limb, an actuator to generate the damping force, and a control unit that is responsive to the motion sensor and actuator to generate a damping force that alleviates trembling.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,290 to Wie, et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes control moment gyros in an array are rotated to reorient a satellite. A pseudo inverse control is employed that adds a term to a Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse to prevent a singularity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,571 to Hall, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a gyroscope firmly held against the back side of the human hand to reduce or eliminate the effect of naturally occurring tremors such as essential tremor or other tremor. The gyroscope is driven by an electric motor energized by batteries. The batteries are mounted near the periphery of the gyroscope to enhance the gyroscopic action. In a modified form of the invention the motor is not mounted on the back side of the hand but is a separate unit to which the gyroscope can be readily coupled and uncoupled.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,124 to Escher, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a precessional exercising device utilizing a housing containing a spinning mass which forms the rotor of a motor for spinning the mass. The spin axis of the mass is perpendicular to upper and lower flat housing surfaces adapted to be held in the palm of the hand. Alternatively, the housing may be coupled to a remote handle by a linkage permitting rotation of the handle about two mutually orthogonal axes. Also, the housing containing the spinning mass may be coupled to a remote foot plate for similar rotation of the housing by movement of the foot. The housing containing the spinning mass may be affixed to a hinged deck upon which the upper part of the body may be secured for bending and twisting exercises. Exercise of the muscles is achieved by making accurate exercising movement which rotate the spin axis of the spinning mass within the housing, and by resisting the precession torque generated as a result of rotation of the spin axis of the spinning mass.
Additional background art and information includes IEC 60601-1—medical electrical equipment—Part 1: General requirements for basic safety and essential performance, 3rd Edition; Brown, Peck, “Energetics of Control Moment Gyroscopes as Joint Actuators,” Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 1871-1883, 2009; Jarc, Kimes, Pearson and Peck, “The Design and Control of a Low-Power, Upper Limb Prosthesis,” IEEE 32nd Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference, April 2006; and, Carpenter and Peck, “Reducing Base Reactions With Gyroscopic Actuation of Space-Robotic Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 1262-1270, December 2009; the specification sheet for the Model 750 Control Moment Gyroscope offered by Educational Control Products and available at wwwdotecpsystemsdotcom/controls_ctrlgyrodothtm and wwwdotmaelabsdotucsddotedu/mae171/controldocs/gyroscopedothtm; the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.